1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of advertising, more particularly in online advertising in conjunction with serving electronic information pages over a data packet network. The present invention pertains specifically to methods and apparatus for serving online advertisements according to dynamically changing conditions.
2. Discussion of the State of the Art
In the field of electronic placement of advertisements, much focus has been directed on relevancy in ad placement. For example, ad placement services work for clients by placing electronic advertisements into electronic information pages served as a result of some browser navigation activity. The advertisements served may be graphic or text ads and often contain embedded objects that may be interacted with to initiate contact between the customer and the advertiser. Served ads can be relevant to a number of known factors about a person accessing the information page that supports the ad placement. One of these factors is browser behavior collected from the customer as was described above. Another factor might be results of navigation histories at a site cooperating with the ad placement services.
More recently, some companies that facilitate data search services serve advertisements on behalf of advertisers into an electronic information search result page served as a result of a key word or phrase search performed by the customer interacting with a search engine. In this method, advertisers pay a specific amount each time an advertisement is served and the customer clicks the ad. A problem with this type of advertising is that is requires a lot of effort on the part of the advertiser to manage the ad accounts and to optimize the possibilities of ad placement through intelligent keyword and phrase management. Also, the contact information is the same each time the advertisement is placed no matter where or when the ad is served. Likewise, ads placed electronically must be prearranged and booked ahead of time. Therefore information attached to the advertisement like contact information is static such as a Web link or email address.
What is clearly needed is a system and method for placing electronic advertisements based on available current contact information at the time of ad placement and/or state of activity level of the advertiser at the time of ad placement. Such a system and service would enable opportunistic placement of ads at such times when those responses may be serviced best.